Study: Mobile app market to hit $17.5 billion by 2012

According to a study sanctioned by app company GetJar, the mobile application market will reach $17.5 billion by 2012, at which point there will be some 50 billion programs available, compared to 7 billion last year.

Those figures are in line with other estimates, such as a recent report by Gartner, which suggested app revenue would hit $29.5 billion by the end of 2013. Such projections emphasize the rapid shift to mobile computing solutions, and other portions of the study further underscore the mobile sector's expansion.

For instance, over the past year, the number of app stores grew from 8 to 38, and more are on the way. Naturally, Apple's store leads the pack with an estimated 150,000 mobile applications and 3 billion downloads to date. Google's Android marketplace is also growing quickly with over 30,000 apps.

It seems Google's CEO isn't alone in envisioning a future without desktops. GetJar's chief executive told AFP that mobile apps will not only eclipse the traditional desktop Internet, but that "mobile devices will kill the desktop."